Possible to downgrade to 2.2?
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I installed pfsense for the very first time this afternoon. The main reason I installed it was that I had been told that dansguardian (a major requirement for me) would be easy to install - a "one click install"
Today, however, I discovered that dansguardian is no longer supported since 2.3
I really like pfsense from the few hours I've been using it, but I absolutely must have a content filter on my network - we have four kids in the house who love using the internet!
I've noticed that there is talk of getting an official package for e2guardian - which looks like it would do well as a dansguardian replacement - but there's nothing there yet.
My options seem to be to either install another OS entirely and set up everything manually, or, if it's possible, to downgrade to 2.2. Is that even possible? How would I do it? As I say, this is my first install of pfsense, so I have no backups to fall back on.
I'd rather stick with pfsense and just wait until e2guardian is available before upgrading again.
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You can download any old versions of pfSense from:
http://atxfiles.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/old/Then fresh install 2.2.6 and reconfigure to your liking.
Note: You can't import 2.3 config backups into 2.2. You must reconfigure everything manually. -
if you just have started with using pfSense, you are unlikely to have a zillion rules/packages/settings configured at this point in time.
starting from scratch with an older version wouldn't be a huge effort, getting the new config working on an older version could be an issue.personally I will always be against censoring content (whatever it is) … i'm not a parent, but still i think it'd be better to explain why x = bad and y=good.
i work in education & notice that kids will always find a way to circumvent policies .... i can't be bothered with playing catchup 24/7 -
If I downgrade, will the dansguardian package become available? It occurs to me that, since it's no longer supported, it might just not be available anymore.
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Try this first https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=112335.0
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Thanks - that looks helpful. I'm assuming, though, that it only offers url filtering and not content filtering?
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It first sets google and bing to use safe search
Then uses a block list, you can set what to block in squidguard (like private VPN, other web browsers that do not support safe mode, ads and adult content) once you set it up see if you can bypass it. -
Sounds good, but, if a site isn't on the black list then it presumably can be accessed?
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That is correct, however the shallalist block list is very large and updated often (if you find an exception you can submit it to them). Also because we are forcing google and bing to use safe search (and blocking all other search engines) that helps limit the change of finding bad sites. The best thing is when/if E2guardian is finished it can be added to this setup.
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Excellent - thanks! I'll give it a go - I can always go down the downgrade route if I'm not happy - although you sell it well!
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If I downgrade, will the dansguardian package become available? It occurs to me that, since it's no longer supported, it might just not be available anymore.
For the benefit of future readers, the packages for 2.2.* are still online for installs from 2.2.* systems. But they are no longer being maintained - e.g. if there are new versions of the underlying upstream code to fix security stuff or… then you won't get them.